SXSW Home > South by Southwest Live Updates > Archives > 2007 > March > 16
Friday, March 16, 2007
Times New Viking
Artist: Times New Viking
Hometown: Columbus, Ohio
Venue: Exodus, 10 p.m., Friday
Pre-show buzz: Lo-fi art-rock geniuses with two albums on Siltbreeze; now signed to Matador.
High point: Where to start? Even though they front-loaded the front row with Columbus pals (whose slamming very nearly killed our photographer), they more than lived up to every bit of excitement. Simple, fall-apart riffs, dinky keyboards and heavier-than-God drumming adds up to something thrilling and fun.
Low point: N/A
Post-show buzz: The second coming of Pavement.
Afterthoughts: No, really.
Me: “Is this what early Pavement shows felt like? Because this is amazing.”
Longtime scenester: “No, these guys are WAY better than Pavement were live at this point in their careers.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
Blues Control
Artist: Blues Control
Hometown: Ridgewood, N.Y.
Venue: Spiro’s, 8 p.m. Friday
Pre-show buzz: Almost nonexistent. Not only are they all but unknown outside of Internet noise-record collector circles, their name is, um, inaccurate. This impossibly noisy duo has little, in fact, to do with either blues or control.
High point: Repurposing (what I think was) the riff to “My Sharona” into the fairly abstract noise guitar-keyboard vamp, thereby giving one of the most annoying songs on the planet a whole new context.
Low point: The facial expressions of Spiro’s regular employees. They looked unprepared for the peals of skree.
Post-show buzz: Everyone was happy to finally get a copy of the record.
Afterthoughts: The handful of folks who were there thought they had accomplished something, but I can’t see them opening for, say, Spoon anytime soon. (Sonic Youth, on the other hand …)
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
Luminous Orange
Artist: Luminous Orange
Hometown: Yokohama, Japan
Venue: The Ale House, 9:00 p.m. Friday
Pre-show buzz: One of the only shoegazer, dream-pop bands playing SXSW 2007. If you follow the genre, they need no introduction.
On point: Singer/guitarist Rie Takeuchi’s guitar playing. She chops apart the “good for a girl” cliche with assured playing on her vintage Fender.
Dear SXSW organizers: If y’all are going to bother inviting this band over from Japan, why not give them a better showcase?
Post-show buzz: Almost every one of the 30 or so people in attendance left after purchasing a CD or a T-shirt. If those 30 people tell two people about Luminous Orange’s shimmering noise-pop, and those two people tell two people, then this blissfully noisy pop band will be slightly closer to receiving the notoriety they deserve.
Afterthoughts: If you like beautifully fragile vocals and Sonic Youth meets My Bloody Valentine soundscapes, you better ask somebody about Luminous Orange.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
Blanche
Artist: Blanche
Hometown: Detroit
Venue: Stubb’s, 3 p.m. Friday
Pre-show buzz: dreamy, carny alt-country; the soundtrack to a Jim Jarmusch documentary about Flannery O’Connor
High point:The angular “Superstitious,” where the dreamland met the gutter, where Lyle Lovett and Tom Waits were brethren.
Coolest member (tie): the gum-chewing female drummer and the ingenue on bass, who looked like she’d stepped out of a Mickey Spillane book.
Post-show buzz: A lot of folks who wandered inside during the set breaks at the Stubb’s party were happy to hear a band that was more intriguing than some on the main stage.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
Aqueduct
Artist: Aqueduct
Hometown: Seattle
Venue: Day show at Emo’s Annex, Friday
Pre-show buzz: One-man “bedroom band” becomes full-fledged live act
High point: Gotta love a band with its own theme song. (“Who wanna rock with the Aqueduct … I’ll make you jump around like an awkward duck.”)
Low point: Primus frontman Les Claypool, spotted in the crowd, didn’t join them onstage.
Department of Unneccessary Covers: The Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited,” turned into a kind of halfhearted torch song.
Afterthoughts: Seeing songwriter David Terry in this format, with bandmates to help with the hand claps and dueling keyboard choruses, was a lot more interesting than seeing him alone on an empty stage with only a bank of samplers to give support.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
Dirty Fuzz
Artist: Dirty Fuzz
Hometown: London, U.K.
Venue: Blender Bar at the Ritz, 8:00 p.m. Friday
Pre-Show Buzz: If AC/DC fired Brian Johnson and picked up Tina Turner, people would accuse them of copying Dirty Fuzz. Tough, unrestrained and very tasty, Elida Zulu is everything a lead singer of a dirty, whiskey-fueled, garage outfit ought to be.
High Point: Everything from licking the microphone to gyrating on the mike stand to the rowdy group effort during “Crash and Burn” — Zulu’s a diva in a rock band all right.
Low Point: The event was heavily sponsored by companies (Verizon, Guess cologne) that I now detest thanks to the massive film projector that played 12-feet-tall commercials throughout the show.
Post Show Buzz: I don’t know about everybody else but I was ready to let Zulu do with me as she pleased.
Afterthoughts: I felt sorry for the next guy to use that microphone.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment |
Zach Galifianakis
Artist: Zach Galifianakis
Hometown: Venice, Calif.
Venue: Emo’s Annex
Pre-show buzz: “Comedians of Comedy” co-star hosts showcase for acts from Bob Mould to The Broken West.
High point: He announces there will be “an award for Most Disinterested Hipster”; crowd members silently congratulate themselves for their sincere love of music.
Low point: Many in the crowd feigned offense at comment “I’m as photogenic as Terri Schiavo.”
Post-show buzz: Let’s hope the bands play short sets so he has to talk more.
Afterthoughts: Acting as if each joke had just been written moments before, he turned awkward tics like smoothing his hair and applying lip balm into entertainment. Got laughs by mocking mainstream acts like Sheryl Crow and the Spin Doctors, but did it in a way that suggested equal disdain for those who consider themselves above the squares.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
Tilly and the Wall
Artist: Tilly and the Wall
Hometown: Omaha, Neb.
Venue: Day show at the Belmont, Friday
Pre-show buzz: Gotta see the indie band with the tap dancers instead of a drummer.
High point: “Bad Education” — it wasn’t the set’s tightest performance, but the flamenco-ish tap percussion showed how much passion this strange configuration can put across.
Non-musical entertainment: Watching the lead dancer do the same riff for minutes straight during soundcheck, patiently waiting for the sound guy to get the level appropriately high. She was still waiting when the set ended.
Post-show buzz: With their thrift-store-explosion garb and obvious enthusiasm, it’s a bit hard not to think of Tilly & Co. as “those crazy kids.” But their music is unlike anything around, and the large crowd this afternoon seemed charmed.
Afterthoughts: The tap thing might sound like a gimmick, but it’s thoroughly integrated with the group’s songs.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
The Buzzcocks
Artist: The Buzzcocks
Hometown: Manchester, U.K.
Venue: SXSW Live at the Convention Center
Pre-show buzz: Rare chance to see punk pioneers
High point: “Ever Fallen in Love?”
Low point: Didn’t play the tune everybody probably wanted to hear, “What Do I Get?” If you’re going to sell a punk classic for TV advertisements, the least you can do is play it live.
Post-show buzz: “That’s it?”
Afterthoughts: A set less than 15 minutes long is short even by punk standards. The climate-controlled TV-studio setup in the Convention Center was better than getting shunted off into the bleachers at Emo’s, but if they play a set this short there, they’ll be pelted with beer bottles.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment |
Peter, Bjorn and John
Artists: Peter, Bjorn and John
Hometown: Stockholm, Sweden
Venue: Pitchfork party at Emo’s
Pre-show buzz: Buzz band is contender for most gigs booked during SXSW 2007
High point: “Objects of My Affection,” a bouncy tune (with a whistling solo!) on which the boys were joined by a guest bongoist; the tune inspired more dancing than seen at most SXSW day parties.
Low point: After announcing (maybe presumptuously, but in good faith) “Thanks, we have one more song for you,” the soundman politely but firmly declared that they did not.
Afterthoughts: It was astounding to see lines down the block trying to get into a set by a band that had already played at least a half-dozen sets this week — and to see a band whose energy had yet to flag, whose voices weren’t hoarse, and who were only barely (making a joke while introducing “Start to Melt”) bothered by lugging that gear around so much in the Texas heat.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
Rwake
Artist: Rwake
Hometown: Little Rock, Ark.
Venue: Room 710, midnight late Thursday
Pre-show buzz: Truly psychotic sounding Southern sludge metal that seems to get both more detailed and more savage with each album. “Voices from Omens,” their fourth, is a career peak. They utterly destroyed at last year’s SXSW.
High point: While everyone in the band sported the truly gnarly dreadlocks common to crust-metal bands the world over, sampler player/vocalist B. simply had one large lock coming from her head. It looked like a tail and it is entirely possible there are things living in it. B., crouched on the ground and screaming into a mike, proved an intriguing foil for singer C.T.
Low point: I’m gonna see B.’s dreadlock coming at me in my dreams.
Post-show buzz: It’s entirely possible they opened a gate to hell.
Afterthoughts: The deep South has produced some of the scariest heavy metal of modern times. Bands such as Richmond, Va.’s Buzzoven and North Carolina’s Corrosion of Conformity paved the way for these folks, who really do look like they’ve buried a body or two in their day. It’s profoundly ugly music capable of great catharsis and, therefore, great beauty.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
Jesu
Artist: Jesu
Hometown: Birmingham, England
Venue: Emo’s Annex, 11:30 p.m. Thursday
Pre-show buzz: It was as deafening as their guitar buzz, impressive, considering the first few dates of this tour, their American debut, were bagged due to visa problems.
High point: “Tired Of Me,” the first song on their excellent “Silver” EP, played at ear-splitting volume; frontdude Justin Broadrick’s old-school head-neck-torso thrashes, also known as “the drinking bird dance;” the fact that Broadrick — who has been making extreme metal history since he was about 16 — looks like a first-grade teacher.
Low point: The fact that it didn’t go on for another hour.
Post-show buzz: “YEAAHHH! THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!”
Afterthoughts: Part of the Hydrahead records showcase, Jesu’s doomy, wide-screen, almost ambient metal owes as much to guitar bands such as My Bloody Valentine as Broadrick’s earlier project Godfesh. It’s a sheets of sound thing, massive amp hum forged into melodies and riffs of often overwhelmingly grace. Magnificent.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment |
The Bird and the Bee
Artist: The Bird and the Bee
Hometown: Los Angeles
Venue: Opal Divine’s Freehouse, 1 a.m. Thursday
Pre-show buzz: A somewhat unlikely fit for the venerable Blue Note label, singer-bassist Inara George and multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurstin scored a left-field dance-club hit with the ironic ‘(Expletive) Boyfriend.’
High point: George’s voice sounds airy and light on recordings, but she’s an astute and supple vocalist, as well as a charismatic frontwoman who doesn’t let her natural glamour get in the way of a good laugh. On the surface, the songs have the unabashed sensuality of ’60s French pop, but Kurstin’s jazz training give the keyboards a sophisticated twist. In the arrangements, you can hear sly echoes of everything from Michel Legrand to Burt Bacharach to Van Dyke Parks to the Roches.
Low point: The band got a late start as it took a while to get the monitors adjusted properly. As George said, ‘SXSW is fun, but it’s a sound maze.’
Post-show buzz: The crowd probably would have been bigger at an earlier hour, but everybody seemed energized once the music started.
Afterthoughts: An intricate sound difficult to pull off live, but they did it, and were as much fun to watch as to hear.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
Bloc Party
Artist: Bloc Party
Hometown: London
Venue: Stubb’s, midnight Thursday
Pre-show buzz: Bloc Party was a SXSW buzz-band two years ago. This year they were out to prove that they are not a flash-in-the-pan by playing only one SXSW performance as part of a world tour supporting their second full-length, “A Weekend In The City.”
High point: When bassist Gordon Moakes began playing the irresistibly moving bass line to “Positive Tension,” the crowd started — and couldn’t stop — dancing.
Bonus points: Bloc Party played a healthy dose of songs from “A Weekend In The City” and their new songs proved stronger under the scrutiny of the live show microscope than they sound recorded. The South London boys have cleared the infamous sophomore slump hurdle.
Post-show buzz: When Bloc Party has the engines of all four members firing together, they take hold of an audience’s collective consciousness and transcend time and space. It’s rock ‘n’ roll, but it’s also dance music that can make even the most jaded foot-tapper lose his (or her) inhibitions and just bug-out.
Afterthoughts: Singer/guitarist Kele Okereke exclaimed that this was the band’s fifth performance at Stubb’s, but methinks he has miscounted by one or two shows (possibly referring to their fifth trip to Austin). Bloc Party’s performance at SXSW 2007 was not sold out. SXSW officials could have sold $20 tickets to die-hard fans (as they’ve done at venues in the past) considering the club was nowhere close to capacity. Although their buzz has died down, the band is actually performing more solid, more inspired shows than they ever have.
